It was in October of 2003 when a neighbor of the Jacksons (Raymond and Vanessa) called police to say someone was rummaging through a garbage can. There they found Bruce Jackson, the oldest of the adopted sons, hunting for food. At 19 years old, he weighed 45 pounds.

As police investigated further, they found his siblings equally emaciated. A 14-year-old weighed 38 pounds. Another brother, age 9, stood just 3-foot-1 and weighed 23 pounds. The youngest child, a 10-year-old, weighed only 28 pounds.

Authorities later learned the boys subsisted on a diet of uncooked pancake batter. One boy gnawed on a window sill to blunt his hunger.

“Under anyone’s definition of hell, they lived in it, truly,” said Michael Critchley, a lawyer who later represented Bruce Jackson without charge, winning him a $5 million settlement from the state. The other three boys were awarded a total of $7.5 million.

The case helped push through major reforms at the state Division of Youth and Family Services, which had placed the boys with the Jacksons and had been monitoring the family continually.

“It very well illustrated the human cost of a child welfare system that was essentially abandoning many of its children,” said Marcia Robinson Lowry, executive director of Children’s Rights Inc., a national advocacy group that had previously filed a class-action suit against the agency.

Today, Lowry said, the younger three boys are in good health with another adoptive family.

Critchley said Bruce Jackson would have no comment on Vanessa Jackson’s release.

“His position is that it’s part of his life that’s behind him, and that’s where he wants to leave it,” the lawyer said.

The external wounds have healed; but the young men remain undersized. Years of neglect and starvation have blunted what their true height might have been as men. And internal–really psychological–wounds will take a lifetime to get over, despite what they may say now. When something this catastrophic has occurred for years, there is always the possibility that they will repeat the behavior somewhere in their lives.

Vanessa Jackson, who was convicted in a notorious child-starvation case in Camden County, is scheduled to be freed today from the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility in Clinton, N.J.

Jackson, 54, will have served four years for endangering the welfare of four adopted brothers who were so emaciated they more than doubled their weight soon after they were taken from her. She could have served up to seven years under a sentence handed down in Superior Court.

Vanessa Jackson at the time of her conviction in 2006 (Courtesy: NYT)

The case came to light in 2003 when neighbors spotted a severely underweight Bruce Jackson, then 19, rummaging for food in garbage cans outside his Collingswood home. He now is in a state home for the developmentally disabled. (In another news account, Jackson, despite his physical infirmities, is attending college.)

Vanessa Jackson would have been eligible for parole after two years, but was denied early release on two occasions because she refused to “accept responsibility for her actions,” said Neal Buccino, parole board spokesman. “She still places blame on the children’s medical conditions.”

Bruce Jackson, who saved his and his younger brothers’ lives, makes a statement at his mother’s trial in 2006 (Courtesy: GMA)

Jackson declined a request for an interview; one of the children said he hoped she would see a picture of him and realize that she was wrong.

“I think it’s good she’s getting out so she can see how we’re doing and what we look like,” said Terrell Parrish, now 16, and living with new adoptive parents and the two other boys who had lived in the Jackson home.

“I would like her to see that we put on good weight and have good clothes on, and to see how strong we are,” Parrish said. “She doesn’t have to apologize if she doesn’t want to, but it would be best for her to do that. What she did was very wrong, and how can you do that to someone?”

It is easy to say that Vanessa Jackson, like her husband who suffered a stroke when he realized that they were going to be indicted, is a very sick person. But this very sick couple were also called devout Christians. I think that Raymond Jackson was actually a minister or a elder. I know that they were very fundamentalist Christians as well.

There is nothing wrong with these extremely orthodox, rigid sects. However, as a closed society, they sometimes provide a means by which the psychologically damaged, under the guise of devotion, love, and care, can abuse others. Their sore points are fear of discovery and the disruption of rules. And sad to say, even the traditional family is a closed community in which domestic crimes like violence and abuse can be committed. Let’s face it. How many domestic abusers, serial rapists or seducers, and child molesters and beaters have been found within these sects? The children were supposedly “home-schooled,” thus eliminating the possibility of suspicious teachers intervening; they saw no doctors, therefore their claim of the boys suffering from eating disorders and the effects of fetal alcohol syndrome were found to be groundless.

It was also found that Vanessa Jackson in particular favored the girls above the boys (then why adopt boys?) so the daughters were given special treatment, food and vacations. The adult Jackson children who also lived in the home, and William Jackson, a brother of Raymond, were convinced that their parents and sibling were doing nothing wrong. Unfortunately, the Jacksons’ rented home was in arrears by $8,000, and their electricity and heating had been shut off almost six months before. This is how a few false steps or belief systems can create mini-Jonestowns in homes and in churches.

Particularly, in these churchgoing communities, it’s a very thin line between discipline and child abuse. In certain situations, parent(s) can go too far, as did the Jacksons, who seem to have been working out their problems, real or imagined, on the boys. This came from an Inquirer article a few weeks after the initial horror was uncovered. Raymond and Vanessa Jackson even sought to stigmatize Bruce Jackson for his life-saving actions and drive a wedge between him and the two younger boys. In other words, they tried to further cover up their abuse by shifting responsibility. If you’ve forgotten, check out what was the condition of the boys when they were rescued:

Medicaid records confirm that once the Jacksons adopted the boys, the Collingswood couple stopped taking them to doctors.

And in the two weeks between the removal of their children and their arrest, prosecutors said, the parents sought to convince their younger sons that 19-year-old Bruce was “evil” and the reason their family had been ripped apart.

[…]

The parents “believe Bruce is an evil person,” Sarubbi said. “They blame Bruce for the breakup of their family. My conclusion is that they will wage psychological warfare against the children.”

[…]

Sarubbi said the state’s case had “become more compelling” since the brothers were removed from their home. Bruce, who has received two blood transfusions, remains hospitalized; the three others live in foster homes.

Accusing the Jacksons of “a systemic pattern of neglect and malnutrition,” the prosecutor pointed to the brothers’ condition when they arrived at Our Lady of Lourdes Medical Center.

They had lice in their hair, and one had a mass, or inedible object, in his stomach, Sarubbi said.

When authorities searched the Jackson home, he said, they found an alarm on the refrigerator and a lock on the kitchen door.

Although the parents had access to free medical care through Medicaid, they stopped taking the brothers to doctors after adopting them, Sarubbi said. Authorities researched Medicaid files and found that Bruce, Keith and Tyrone last saw doctors in 1996 and that Michael’s last medical visit was in 1995.

Bruce “will have to have each and every tooth pulled from his mouth and have dental implants,” Sarubbi said, adding that the brothers did not see a dentist after their adoption.

Bruce Jackson’s 3-inch growth, making him 4-foot-3, surprised several expert who have followed the case but are not involved. The weight gain, even 30 pounds, is not highly unusual, said Andrew Sirotnak, director of the child-protection team at the Children’s Hospital in Denver.

Remember that Bruce Jackson was 19 years old. If you have 19-year-old male children, friends and relatives, except for the fact of their parents, you know how tall they are supposed to be.

Now imagine a 19-year-old boy–not a midget or little person–the size of a five-year-old or seven-year-old child.

There is a particular young man that I sometimes see on the bus going towards Madison College, the two-year technical college in Madison. He too is developmentally disabled and has a motorized wheelchair. He is fragile and thin, and his legs and arms and fingers are sometimes at cross purposes, but he too is going to school and has a job.

Imagine Bruce Jackson in that chair. Bruce Jackson wasn’t born developmentally-challenged as the young Madison College boy was. Bruce Jackson was made that way. He is now about 23 or 24-years-old.

Remember all this as a warning about strange behavior among your friends and family members.

Vanessa Jackson, now 54, has never apologized for her actions to the state or to the boys under her care–one of the main reasons why she did not receive early parole from a seven-year jail term. She served the minimum out of the term. She refused to see reason or to accept reality. In other words, she is remorseless. For her, the state intervened and destroyed her motherhood. Nothing was wrong until Bruce Jackson scavenged for food in garbage cans, and a neighbor reported it to the police. People like that cannot even think of salvation or inner peace. Their right is the only right. It’s god and them alone. She’s going to have to live with her definition of god for quite a while. I doubt whether the God of the Christians is like this at all.

Something went wrong with this woman a long time ago. Let it end and die with her.

Most all of her other children were adopted, and they were sent to live with other families in the wake of the controversy, and some are now grown or nearly so. I don’t know what her life will be like in the future, but I hope that New Jersey–a state that also possesses a broken social services system–or any other state never gives her any more children to care for again under any name. I think there should be a national website set up for incidents like these so that they don’t happen again.

If you ever see something, or if you know something, do something about it. Don’t let spare the rod and spoil the child blind you to some realities. Let’s not condemn our children to a tragic future.

16 Responses to “The New Jersey Black Boys Who Were Nearly Starved to Death Six Years Ago Are Thriving, Growing Up…and Are Loved”

OMG, THAT WAS SO HORRIBLE ABOUT WHAT HAPPEN[ED] TO THESE LITTLE BOYS. BUT I AM JUST SO GLAD THAT THEY ARE ALIVE AND WELL NOW, AND YES THEY HAVE A LONG WAY TO GO STILL. BUT THEY HAVE A LOVING FAMILY NOW THAT CAN HELP THEM THROUGH WHAT THEY NEED HELP WITH. GOD BLESS THEM NOW AND IN THEIR PRECIOUS FUTURE.

Hey, God bless you! I am a minister at my local church, is there a way i can get in touch with these young men! Their story touched me!! I want to take them out if thats possible. Does anyone know how i can reach them?

i am a c.a.s.a. (court appointed advocate for abused children ) in the state of oklahoma; unfortunately many, many children are abused and neglected every day, while countless people look away. it’s up to us as a society to get involved: be nosy, call someone if you suspect a child is in danger. children have no voice, it’s up to us to speak out. better to be safe than sorry…it might just save a life…[be] like the neighbor of these poor sweet boys.

this pisses me off. are these boys blood brothers? where is the original mother and father? it angers me that indigents can breed children like roaches that drop eggs every 28 days. i can’t believe the state gave the parents lenient sentences. i am ANGRY!!!!@#$%^*(!!!!! child rapists, incest, now people starving children? what in the hell is going on?!!!!!

All four are blood brothers. The Jacksons adopted them. I’m not sure what happened with their true father and mother, just that they were taken away to be given to the Jacksons. Perhaps this will come out during the Oprah show.

Remember, this occurred four and a half years ago.

She could have gotten out earlier, but she refused to say that she was sorry for her actions. After four years, she was paroled. The maximum she was given was eight years, I believe.

Oprah is doing a special on these boys tomorrow, Thurs. May 6, 2010. I am a social work student in NC and cannot believe the state these poor boys were found in. I know I cannot work in child welfare when I get my degree, because I could not serve somoene like these so-called parents. Anyone who abuses or neglects a child, especially this horrible and long-term, should be punished most severely, not just four years of confinement.

So many things aren’t picked up by social services departments, I think, because they don’t have the funding and the people to track what happens when children fall through the cracks. Another thing: to report these incidents would probably mean that manpower and funds and lots and lots of paperwork would have to be expended. In other words, some people might be l-a-z-y, refusing to do their jobs until it was too late. Or when children are going through garbage cans looking for food.

If you are going to be a social worker, don’t allow yourself to be sucked into the environment and work ethic of these departments. Be proactive. Challenge what you see and experience.

Thank you. Now I know why so many of you have visited my blog within the past few days. I appreciate it very much. I will be watching tomorrow, too.

Yes, in New Jersey they slip through the cracks because they are so busy going after unfounded reports by no lifes and busy bodies. Going after parents and children that are not really in danger. They use up all the resources and manpower that should be focused on the truly endangered children like these boys, and the little boys found dead in the basement. They also spend unneccessary time pointing fingers and making accusations at decent parents rather than helping families that may need their help, whether it be housing concerns, or childcare. Incompetent uneducated case workers are employed who are merely trying to finish “paper work” in order to “keep a job” rather than getting to the root of a problem. I’ve seen it in action and it is truly an unfunctional system.

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